But the core challenge of this time is not the cost of discretionary spending. Obama knows this; everyone knows this. The crisis is the cost of future entitlements and defense, about which Obama proposes nothing. Yes, there’s some blather. But Obama will not risk in any way any vulnerability on taxes to his right or entitlement spending to his left. He convened a deficit commission in order to throw it in the trash. If I were Alan Simpson or Erskine Bowles, I’d feel duped. And they were duped. All of us who took Obama’s pitch as fiscally responsible were duped.
The cynical political calculation is obvious and it is well put by Yglesias and Sprung. If Obama backs Bowles-Simpson, the GOP will savage him for the tax hikes, while also scaring the wits out of the elderly on Medicare. The Democratic left – just look at HuffPo today – will have a cow. Indeed, if Obama backs anything, the GOP will automatically oppose him. He has to wait for a bipartisan agreement which he can then gently push ahead. But that’s exactly why we are in this situation today. Because no president has had the balls to deal with it, and George W. Bush made it all insanely worse. Sprung says the proposal on corporate taxes is a trial balloon
I will not really get into all this; all I know is, we are in a crap load of debt, which is more then out entire Gross Domestic Product. Now, like some Right-Wing blogs, I am not going to sit here, like a chump and tell you it is all the Democrats fault. The truth is both parties are guilty of this nonsense of spending money we do not have; and now both parties are acting like total buffoons, instead actually trying to get it down. Which is not totally surprising.
However, I do find it mildly amusing that the same blogger, who was essentially Barack Obama’s poodle dog during the 2008 election cycle is now the first blogger to come out swinging against him. Which proves my theory entirely of the fact that liberals, which is what Sully is, not a Conservative; are just not much loyal to the one’s that they elect. My opinion? Sure, that is what I do here. However, based upon what I have been seeing in the left wing media in this day and age; my opinion not that very far off.
Having said all of that….. CUE THE MUSIC! HIT IT B.B.!
Well, isn’t this just a lovely story to pick up on a Sunday Morning?
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration’s Justice Department has asserted that the FBI can obtain telephone records of international calls made from the United States without any formal legal process or court oversight, according to a document obtained by McClatchy.
That assertion was revealed by the department – perhaps inadvertently – in its response to a McClatchy request for a copy of a secret Justice Department memo.
Critics say the legal position is flawed and creates a potential loophole that could lead to a repeat of FBI abuses that were supposed to have been stopped in 2006.
The controversy is a legacy of the Bush administration’s war on terror. Critics say the Obama administration appears to be continuing many of the most controversial tactics of that strategy, including the assertion of sweeping executive powers.
For years after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI sought and obtained thousands of telephone records for international calls in an attempt to thwart potential terrorists. The bureau devised an informal system of requesting the records from three telecommunications firms to create what one agent called a “phone database on steroids” that included names, addresses, length of service and billing information.
Which proves to this old school, Paleoconservative, Fundamentalist Christian one thing and one thing alone. That the only difference between a Neo-Liberal; like President Obama and a Neoconservative like President Bush is this —- One loves big Government and the other loves big Government as long as they are the one’s controlling it.
I remember how doing the Bush era, people like Keith Olbermann,were wailing to the top of their lungs about how darned horrible of the Bush Administration to allow such stuff to happen; and now that the Obama Administration is in power, what do you hear?
(click to play)
That is right, absolutely nothing about it at all. That is because the socialist liberals do not give a damn about personal liberty, all they care about is winning elections. All of the attacks against the Bush administration about everything; Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, Iraq —- everything —was just partisan politics. It never was about the people; because socialists do not give a darn about the people! All they care about is power – governmental power — everything else to them is just second nature.
Which pretty much sums up why I stopped voted for the Democratic Party. I am pretty much on to their game anymore. They try to come off as the party of the people; but anymore, they are all about the party of the state.
NineEight House Republican freshmen and three inaugural members of the Tea Party Caucus voted against a proposed extension of three Patriot Act provisions Tuesday night, blocking the measure from passage under fast-track rules.
The House clearly backed the measure, voting 277 to 148 to extend the provisions, and most Republicans stuck by their leadership and supported the extension. But enough defected, joined by most Democrats, to keep the measure seven votes shy of the two-thirds majority required for passage under the fast-track procedure.
The House is likely to bring the extensions back up before the end of the month under regular procedures, when a simple majority would suffice to send it to the Senate.
Attention immediately swung to whether House members sympathetic to the tea party had decided the matter, especially after Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) said Monday that the vote would be “the tea party’s first test.”
******
The vote was a blow to President Obama, who had asked Congress to extend the PATRIOT Act’s surveillance authorities — which are due to expire February 28 — for three years.
House Republican leaders weren’t willing to go that far in removing meaningful congressional checks and balances on the surveillance authorities that both the Bush and Obama administrations have used to conduct “roving surveillance” of communications, to collect and examine business records, and to target individuals who are not tied to terrorist groups for surveillance. But they did propose a one-year extension of the authorities.
Most House Republicans — including supposed defenders of the Constitution such as Michigan Congresswoman Michele Bachmann — went along with their leadership. In so doing, they failed to address fundamental concerns, raised by conservatives and liberals, about Patriot Act abuses of the very Constitution that theyread aloud at the opening of the current Congress.
But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, led the vast majority of House Democrats in opposing any extension. In all, 122 Democrats — roughly two-thirds of the party’s House caucus — voted “no” to extending surveillance authorities that the American Civil Liberties Union warns “give the government sweeping authority to spy on individuals inside the United States and, in some cases, without any suspicion of wrongdoing. All three should be allowed to expire if they are not amended to include privacy protections to protect personal information from government overreach.”
*****
Today, Dennis Kucinich and the Tea Partiers were on the same side. If Obama wants to be on the wrong side of this issue (as he seems to be on the wrong side in nearly every aspect of the ‘War on Terror’), then so be it. But the House of Representatives has shot down (perhaps only temporarily) a measure to extend the three most grievous portions of the Patriot Act from 2001 (the ‘lone wolf’ provision, the roving wiretaps, and the unchecked powers to seize records with little-to-no probable cause). It has been beyond disheartening to watch Barack Obama more or less carry the mantle of unchecked police powers and indefinite detention that highlighted George W. Bush’s reckless and counterproductive ‘War on Terror’ strategy. More importantly, the apparent approval and continuation of such policies by the Obama administration has turned what was once a bitterly divided series of issues into something resembling bi-partisan consensus. Quite frankly, there is much that the likes of Rand Paul and Dennis Kucinich can indeed agree on. Perhaps this may be the start of the genuine liberals in Congress joining with the genuine conservatives in order to attempt to stop much of the genuinely un-American activities that have occurred post-9/11 on our watch and in our name. It is a pipe dream, but it is a goal worth advocating none-the-less.
*****
As Members of Congress, we are obligated to protect the rights and civil liberties afforded to us by the Constitution and to exercise our oversight powers fully. Despite years of documentation evidencing abuse of these provisions by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, they may extended without any meaningful debate or opportunity to implement common-sense reforms to ensure that the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans are fully protected. Our failure to do so makes Congress complicit in these violations of basic constitutional rights.
****
The three provisions, incidentally, were for surveillance of non-citizens, roving wiretaps of multiple phones owned by a suspect, and the “library records” provision giving the FBI access to, among other things, medical and business records, which apparently was the sticking point for many Republicans voting no. Those three will lapse at the end of the month unless they’re extended; as with the Bush tax cuts, because the issue is contentious, Congress is in perpetual “temporary” extension mode instead of reaching a permanent resolution on any of them. Frankly, if there’s any tea party angle to all this, it’s that there wasn’t more opposition among the GOP freshmen: After months of rhetoric about government intrusion and hand-wringing on both sides about Obama’s expansion of Bush’s counterterror powers — to the point where U.S. citizens like Awlaki are now marked for death by presidential decree — they had some political cover to draw the line on extending parts of the Patriot Act further if they wanted to. (Ron Paul was among the 26 no’s, of course.) Nope.
I will say this about Jonathon Turley; at least he is consistent. Turley always gave it to Olbermann on Countdown straight about the Bush Administration; whether it was what Olbermann wanted to hear….or not. For this he has my respect.
Anyhow, Turley tells it like it is about the Obama healthcare plan, which he calls the Ford Pinto Healthcare plan:
After this week’s decision striking down the entire federal health care law as unconstitutional, the White House went into a full convulsive rage at Judge Roger Vinson of the Northern District of Florida.
Borrowing an attack that has more often been heard from Republican administrations, Stephanie Cutter, a senior adviser to President Obama, issued a statement denouncing Vinson as a “judicial activist.” That charge was quickly picked up by Democratic lawmakers. The evidence cited for this charge was the fact that Vinson “declared that the entire law is null and void even though the only provision he found unconstitutional was the (individual mandate) provision,” which requires every citizen to buy health insurance.
What the White House does not mention is that it played a game of chicken over health care with the court and lost a critical battle in Florida. Instead of inserting a “severability clause” designed to protect an act from this type of global rejection, the legislation was rammed through a divided Congress with diminishing public support.
The absence of the clause was just one of the flaws in this legislation, which even sponsors now admit must be amended to address serious problems ranging from passage. Of course, even without such a clause, judges can still avoid striking down an entire law and confine their rulings to a specific provision. That is what Judge Henry
Hudson did last year in Virginia after finding the individual mandate unconstitutional. Hudson was right to do so, in my view, but that does not make Vinson a judicial activist. The charge of activism sounds like the lament of every bad gambler after being discouraged from playing a high-risk hand.
I very highly recommend that you read the rest of that. One thing I will say about Turley; he is not a partisan. Turley is a Constitutional scholar and I admire the guy greatly for his refusal to cow-tow down to the liberal left. I always said that this law would be repealed; and this is why. You just do not write a piss poor law like this and expect it not be challenged.
…and this is what this law was….a piss poor written law.
Please Note: The posting of this video does not constitute an endorsement of views presented in this video. It is simply posted for information purposes only.
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In this issue of the reality report:The Egyptian Revolution triggered a government shutdown of the web. Could it happen here? Is the internet kill switch back on the congressional table? If the Feds shut down the web in the United States how could “We the People” get around the internet blackout? Gary Franchi reveals what tools you need to bypass a Government sponsored internet blockade. In this edition, Ron Paul explains the how the Federal Reserve works outside of congress’ constitutional framework. We also look at Senator Chuck Schumer failing miserably while explaining the three branches of government. Beautiful words are uttered from the lips of the Florida attorney general about Obamacare. President and founder of Freedom Law School, Peymon Montehedeh, gives us the details on this years’ Freedom Conference, and we announce a new action taking place in March. We’ll take a dip into the mailbag, deliver the results of last week’s poll, a viewer brands a new Enemy of the State… and Nina returns to deliver the Headlines from the new Reality Report News Room.
The huge oversized 243-page book Diversity Lane/ A Liberal Family Saga now available at the Diversity Lane website! Endorsed by FrontPage, Townhall, Brent Bozell, American Thinker and tons of others– THE most enjoyable conservative book of the year, guaranteed.
For more fun visit us at the Diversity Lane Page at Facebook or visit Zack Rawsthorne’s Facebook Profile to shoot the breeze. Don’t forget to read more at our website www.diversitylane.com or our blog www.diversitylane.wordpress.com.
Two of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s closest allies, his new vice president, Omar Suleiman, and his defense minister, Hussein Tantawi, are quietly working on a plan under which Mubarak would step down from power, according to a U.S. scholar who has been staying in regular touch with the Egyptian political and military leadership.
“They want to be sure that Mubarak is going to cooperate,” said Stephen P. Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development and a longtime confidant of Egyptian and Israeli leaders.
The two-part plan, according to Cohen, would involve the immediate removal of 100 members of the Egyptian Parliament whose election this past fall was seen as illegitimate. They would be replaced by 100 candidates who were barred from running in the election or who were defeated because of government meddling in the election process.
A second possible step would be the organization of new parliamentary and presidential elections. The plan, according to Cohen, “requires [Mubarak] to give up his office.” Asked whether Mubarak would do that, Cohen answered, “He is getting ready to do so.”
***
The White House on Sunday dispatched a former ambassador to Egypt, Frank Wisner, to fly to Cairo to urge the Egyptian government to, at the very least, embrace political reforms.
“As someone with deep experience in the region,” a White House official says, Wisner “is meeting with Egyptian officials and providing his assessment.”
Senior officials would not discuss whether Wisner was charged with showing Mubarak the door. Wisner, the ambassador to Egypt from 1986 to 1991, is currently in Cairo.
A major readjustment to administration rhetoric in response to the crisis in Egypt came on Sunday when the phrase of the day was “orderly transition.”
The president issued a statement saying he supports “an orderly transition to a government that is responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people.” And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took to the Sunday shows to make that argument. “it needs to be an orderly, peaceful transition to real democracy,” she said.
But transition to what?
[…]
One administration official tells ABC News: “we don’t know.”
RACISTS like this, are begging for war. Let’s give them one. It is 220,000,000 white people, against 37,000,000 blacks. You know what a genocide looks like? You don’t, because there is no one left, to remember it. Be? smart, though. Let them, make the first violent moves. Let the people, see their violence. Let them give us a reason. Be patient. Do not move, as an individual. Wait. Keep giving them rope, they need, to hang themselves. LOL!!!
It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause. If it has the power to compel an otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third party merely by asserting — as was done in the Act — that compelling the actual transaction is itself “commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce” [see Act § 1501(a)(1)], it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress could do almost anything it wanted. It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.…
In the final analysis, this Act has been analogized to a finely crafted watch, and that seems to fit. It has approximately 450 separate pieces, but one essential piece (the individual mandate) is defective and must be removed. It cannot function as originally designed. There are simply too many moving parts in the Act and too many provisions dependent (directly and indirectly) on the individual mandate and other health insurance provisions — which, as noted, were the chief engines that drove the entire legislative effort — for me to try and dissect out the proper from the improper, and the able-to-stand-alone from the unable-to-stand-alone. Such a quasi-legislative undertaking would be particularly inappropriate in light of the fact that any statute that might conceivably be left over after this analysis is complete would plainly not serve Congress’ main purpose and primary objective in passing the Act. The statute is, after all, called “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” not “The Abstinence Education and Bone Marrow Density Testing Act.” The Act, like a defectively designed watch, needs to be redesigned and reconstructed by the watchmaker.
This is going to really put a monkey wrench Obama’s plans. Although, I tend to think that the Obama Administration will argue it to the Supreme Court of the United States. The reaction from the White House is going to be an interesting one.
I do believe, that if this Healthcare Bill is scrapped, and they Democrats lose this issue; this may could very well render President Obama unelectable in 2012. Something tells me, that this entire Presidency is going to be Jimmy Carter all over again.
Stay Tuned.
Update: Memeorandum has the roundup of reactions so far.
That aside, the pattern once again has held that every Republican-appointed judge has ruled against the law’s constitutionality and every Democratic-appointed-judge has ruled for it. Now, the ultimate arbiter is the Supreme Court, where Republican appointees hold a 5-4 majority, though one of those 5 (Anthony Kennedy) is not a completely down-the-line Republican.
Given this divide, wouldn’t it make sense to… let elected officials decide? That’s the logic of judicial restraint, anyway, and it’s logic conservatives used to employ about a host of topics. But that was before they gained the ability to win huge victories in the courts that they couldn’t win at the ballot box.
What is a bit surprising is that Vinson went further and held that the mandate isn’t “severable” from the rest of the law — which means that the whole law is unconstitutional, not just the part that requires people to buy insurance. That’s unusual insofar as courts like to be modest when striking down statutes; if they can find a section of it unconstitutional while preserving the rest of it, they’ll do so out of respect for the democratic branches that enacted it. In this case, however, as we’ve been told by Democrats many times, you can’t have universal health care unless you force people to pay for it. Cutting the mandate out of O-Care and keeping the rest of the scheme intact would create a nightmare scenario in which people avoid buying insurance until they get sick, with insurers required to accept them by the new rules governing preexisting conditions. Before long, that cost burden would drive most insurers into bankruptcy, with the golden age of a public option or single-payer soon to follow.
[…]
A fun fact about ObamaCare: Unlike virtually every other federal statute, it contains no “severabililty clause” at the end requesting that if any part of it should be held unconstitutional in court, the rest should be preserved as good law. Vinson actually mentions that fact in the opinion and notes that an earlier draft of the law did contain such a clause, suggesting that it was deliberately dropped because even Congress agrees that you can’t sever any one part from such an elaborate scheme. The truth, however, may be more prosaic: According to a Democratic aide who spoke to the Times back in November, the clause was omitted because of … an “oversight.” Oops!
WASHINGTON — Nearly two-thirds of cars on the road could have more corn-based ethanol in their fuel tanks under an Environmental Protection Agency decision Friday.
The agency said that 15 percent ethanol blended with gasoline is safe for cars and light-duty trucks manufactured between 2001 and 2006, expanding an October decision that the higher blend is safe for cars built since 2007.The maximum gasoline blend has been 10 percent ethanol.
This decision was made despite repeated warnings from industry experts who have been pleading for more time to perform exhaustive testing. Were they being overly cautious? That’s a difficult argument to make, particularly since we told you last month that one delay in testing came from the fact that the higher ethanol blend fuel was melting down the seals in pumps and storage tanks during testing.
The laundry list of potential problems from this decision is extensive. Asking distributors to carry yet another fuel (even if it doesn’t melt their pumps) will require logistical juggling, equipment changes, new signs and other expenses which are inevitably passed on down to the consumer. Ethanol burns hotter than conventional fuel, leading to earlier failure of catalytic converters. (An expensive fix, as any of you who have been hit with it at the garage will attest.)
All of this is still being pushed under the cloak of a more environmentally friendly solution to energy challenges, a claim which current science has increasingly put in doubt. But would it at least produce any type of savings as we fight to get the budget under control?
Rather than furthering his goal to make America “the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015,” however, Obama’s focus on biofuels as the way “to break our dependence on oil” would have the opposite effect if it means sending billions more taxpayers dollars to corn country to finance ethanol infrastructure, Cox said. “Building an ethanol infrastructure at taxpayer’s expense will just lock us further into the past rather than lead us to tomorrow’s energy future,” added Cox, who heads EWG’s Ames, Iowa, office.
Jazz makes a very, very, very, very good point here:
This is clearly a victory for King Corn, but lies in stark contrast to the President’s stated goals of Winning the Future. Exit question: Even if gas stations manage to offer this for cars built in 2001 and after, how will they ensure drivers of older vehicles don’t wind up putting it in their vehicles without retooling the entire delivery system?
Good question. I can see the lawsuits coming now. The first idiot that accidentally puts the corn-laced fuel into an older vehicle and tears the snot out of his engine; and ends up suing the gas station, the fuel delivery company and the oil company that produced the product and comes away with a few million dollars — will cause this little program to be stopped in it’s tracks. Think it would not happen? Think again; there are tons and I do mean TONS of lawyers out there, that are chomping at the bit to take a lawsuit like this and make money off of it.
Updated to add: ….and there is a alternative scenario — What will happen is, some person, who is barely getting by and making minimum wage, and can barely afford a car. This person will accidentally fuel up with this Ethanol laced gas, it will gum up his motor and the poor man will end up having to junk the car and will have scrape around for another one. That is the part that really bothers me. The fact that liberals are so damned hell-bent on fulfilling an agenda that they do not think of all of the possibilities — and because of that, someone out there, not necessarily someone of means; gets screwed in the end. That my friends is the sad part.
Just another example of your feckless Government at work. 🙄
I am going to be totally honest with you all; I do not even like Andrew Breitbart —- But this video right here, is pretty darned interesting.
If everything in this video is true, the Obama Administration could be looking at some problems down the road. To be fair to Mr. Breitbart, he also goes after Republicans for their cowardice in not checking this out. In short, it is fraud on a massive scale and hopefully when this story breaks, someone in the Republican Party — like in the House, will order investigations. The really funny part is, Breitbart says he hired someone from Huffington Post — of all places — to debunk the story and he could not.
Of course the cynical person in me thinks that nothing will become of this; because of race and other factors, none of the people involved in this scandal will see justice. It is just how our system works. Only those who ruffle the wrong feathers — so to speak — are the ones who are actually prosecuted.
I saw this over at the New York Times and I thought it warranted a comment:
MY grandmother, who was born in 1905, spoke often about the immense changes she had seen, including the widespread adoption of electricity, the automobile, flush toilets, antibiotics and convenient household appliances. Since my birth in 1962, it seems to me, there have not been comparable improvements.
Of course, the personal computer and its cousin, the smartphone, have brought about some big changes. And many goods and services are now more plentiful and of better quality. But compared with what my grandmother witnessed, the basic accouterments of life have remained broadly the same.
The income numbers for Americans reflect this slowdown in growth. From 1947 to 1973 — a period of just 26 years — inflation-adjusted median income in the United States more than doubled. But in the 31 years from 1973 to 2004, it rose only 22 percent. And, over the last decade, it actually declined.
This article goes on to lament about how America’s standing in the world has fallen and how America’s level of income has fallen, in comparison to the rest of the world.
There is a simple reason for that; and that is Globalism. We have sacrificed America’s standing in the World and our financial superiority in the world at the altar of globalism. Free trade has killed America’s standing. Do not misunderstand me here; I am not for outright protectionism, however, I believe ALL of these so-called “free trade agreements” are unfairly slanted against America. We need to renegotiate this silly agreements with these foriegn countries and if those countries do not agree to the new terms; we should simply revoke the agreements. The we should go back to the old system of strict tariffs on those who wish to import their goods into this Country.
Until we do this; we are simply spinning our wheels.
The sick and sad part is that President Obama, when he was campaigning promised to do this very thing. Now that he is elected, he has done nothing. Which speaks volumes for the man and the Party that he represents. Perhaps now populists will that Democratic Party, for that which it has become; the part of parasites and socialism — instead of the party of the common man — of which it was founded.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what can be said of plagiarism? President Obama’s second State of the Union address contained enough recycled ideas and lines lifted from speeches of others to make historians wince. I suppose this is what one does when one not only has nothing new to say, but is required by custom and Constitution to come forth with a report of some kind by a certain time and day.
Had Obama or his writers been considerate enough to have informed listeners of where some of the president’s best lines and offered-up ideas originated, the speech might be remembered for its cutting and pasting of great and not-so-great moments of the past performance of others. After quoting Robert Kennedy early on, Obama tried to have his listeners believe that everything else he said that we might remember were his or his writers’ creations. Had the president submitted the text of his second State of the Union Address in the form of a college term paper, he would have been sent forthwith to the nearest academic dean. Once again, our public affairs are such that we have one standard for presidents and another for undergraduates. Now is as good a time as any to let Obama’s listeners in on what the late Paul Harvey would have termed “the rest of the story.” — Obama’s State of the Union Was Tantamount to Plagiarism – Alvin Felzenberg (usnews.com)
Go read the rest of that. This guy is seriously unimpressed with the speech. Believe me, it is not a flattering review. Something tells me that 2012 is going to be a major challenge for President Obama.
Countdown to someone in the Democratic Party playing the race card in 5…..4….3…2…
A real humdinger of a story in this installment. But first, our official music:
Hit the play button to enjoy the music, while you read the story.
Here’s another real classless story from our asshole liberal folks on the left. Tonight’s installment was overseen at HotAir.com. As you all know Gabby Giffords was shot by a crazy gunman just a few weeks ago and already some Democrats are already wanting to toss her under the bus.
Behind closed doors, California Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez has proposed removing Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords from the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) until she recovers from injuries sustained after being shot in the head on Jan. 8 in Tucson, The Daily Caller has learned.
The proposal sparked an outrage, according to those in the room — including from those in Sanchez’s own party.
“It’s not appropriate,” Texas Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes told The Daily Caller, adding that there was outrage among some members in the room when Sanchez made the suggestion. “It’s bad for morale during her recovery period.”
Reyes and Rep. Adam Smith of Washington put up most of the fight against Sanchez, and helped squash the idea.
“From a woman who memorialized her cat, you’d think she’d show a little more compassion for a woman shot in the face,” said one GOP aide, referring to Sanchez’s 2010 Christmas card that paid tribute to her late cat, Gretzky.
Sanchez told her Democratic colleagues on the committee that every vote would be crucial, and since there was little indication Giffords would return soon, they should seek a replacement. A spokesman for Sanchez defended her proposal and called the criticism “ludicrous.”
“Gabby has always been one of the most active members on the Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Sanchez wants to make sure HASC Democrats preserve her voice until the congresswoman has returned,” Sanchez’s Press Secretary Caroline Hogan told TheDC. “Rep. Sanchez simply inquired whether a proxy could represent the Congresswoman on the Committee at Rep. Giffords’ request. That way, Gabby’s legislative priorities and seniority would be preserved until her return. Any other interpretation of her question is ludicrous.”
Get shot in the head, by a crazy, deranged, leftist gunman — get tossed under the bus as useless by your own damned party.
Just more living proof that socialist liberals are classless assholes.
Please note: The posting on this video does NOT constitute support for all of the views therein. It is posted for your education and information.
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Synopsis: In the 78th edition of the Reality Report, Gary Franchi draws the direct parallels America shares with Hitler’s Germany and provides the solution to avoiding their terrible fate. We take a look at Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk where he discusses what a new found interest in the Constitution could mean for America. CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, Peter Schiff tells us why the Chinese modeled their currency after the U.S. dollar. We also hear from the former U.S. military analyst who is responsible for leaking the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg. He explains the recent war on whistle-blowers. Chris Mathews latest hypocrisy is revealed and Angie breaks down the news. As always we take a dip into the mailbag, reveal the results from last weeks viewer poll and brand a new Enemy of the State.
Yes, I did watch the President’s second State of the Union address last night. I wanted to sleep on it, before I actually typed a blog entry about it; and besides, I was tired last night and needed to go to bed. Heck, they accuse me now of being crazy when I blog wide-awake; could you imagine me doing a blog entry half-asleep? 😮
Now about that speech — honestly folks, I thought it was very well done. I thought the President spoke very well and even cracked a rather funny joke about the complexity of the Federal Government. Now there were some things, that as a Conservative, I really had to wonder about. First off, how in the heck is the President going to cut spending, and work on the Nation’s infrastructure? It simply cannot be done. The President is going to spend money updating our infrastructure or he is going to cut spending — you cannot do both; well, at least not very well.
The President made a huge emphasis on education, he also made a huge concession that America’s standing in the World has slipped to Nations like China. I believe that was important. However, I would have like it greatly, if the President had said, how we needed to cut down on, not increase, exports. I would have liked it if the President would have, by executive order — ordered the repeal of the North America Free Trade Agreement, TAFTA and the rest of the free trade agreements. I also would have liked it, if the President would have imposed extremely stiff tariffs on those importing goods into our Country. I would have liked it, if the President would have, by executive order, imposed a strict and high tax on those who have companies here in the United States and manufactured products overseas and imported them here. Now that would have impressed me. However, the President, along with his Republican predecessor continues the agenda of globalism, which is killing the American job market.
The reason I say this, is this; if someone can pay a dollar to some person in China to build a product, as opposed to paying someone minimum wage here —- trust me, those businessperson are going to do it. This is what needs to happen; we need to make it more costly for those business people to do that very thing. That and only that is the way that we will bring manufacturing back to America.
One thing that the President did do that I felt was an honorable gesture; and that was recognizing the man that saved the lives of the miners in Chili. Not only that, but using that an example of how American innovation can be used in times of crisis. I felt that deserved much praise, although you will not see that, at all, on any blogs on the right and it is tragic — as it were the Conservative bloggers who raised that issue, and criticized Obama for not speaking favorably about the man in the first place.
Let me end this by say this. Words and speeches are one thing. Actions and results are another. Like I said about Rick Snyder’s State of the State speech here in Michigan — it was a good speech, but it was very short on specifics. I, like many other Americans, are looking for results. Flowery speeches are nice and rhetoric is great. However, none of those things creates jobs and puts food on the table. When the results come in, than I will say more about this President and what he has done for the Country. So far, all I have seen is flowery speeches and empty rhetoric from BOTH SIDES. When the results come in, and the jobs start being plentiful again, then I will say yea or nay. Until then, I remain skeptical — of BOTH SIDES!
But 8 million homes are today in foreclosure or their owners are delinquent in their mortgage payments. Some 5.5 million are occupied by families whose mortgages are at least 20 percent higher than the value of the property, making them prime candidates for foreclosure.
This weekend, Bank of America reported fourth-quarter losses of $1.6 billion and a 2010 yearly loss of $3.6 billion. Its credit card unit took a $10 billion write-down, and its home loan business is still reeling from the fallout of the exploded housing bubble.
Now, facing trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, House Republicans are balking at agreeing to raise the debit limit of $14.3 trillion, though the national debt just crossed the $14 trillion mark.
Rahm Emanuel was thrown off the ballot for mayor of Chicago Monday by an appellate court panel, a stunning blow to the fund-raising leader in the race.
An appellate panel ruled 2-1 that Emanuel did not meet the residency standard to run for mayor.
Appellate justices Thomas Hoffman and Shelvin Louise Marie Hall ruled against Emanuel. Justice Bertina Lampkin voted in favor of keeping President Obama’s former chief of staff on the Feb. 22 ballot.
Emanuel, speaking to reporters at The Berghoff in the Loop, said he is confident he will win an appeal and return to the ballot.
….and a collective “HEH” goes out though the Blogosphere…..
Of course Emanuel says that he will appeal and of course, someone will get a briefcase full of money and he will be allowed to run. Just how things are in Chicago; after all. Look how we got our President.
Most of us presumed that the protests were more about Bush than the wars when they took place, but even the skeptics have to be a little surprised just how uncool the anti-war movement has become since Barack Obama took place. The neo-Stalinist International ANSWER, one of the groups featured in this film, must have thought they were achieving some sort of mainstream penetration into politics when Democrats started flooding into their rallies. Now they’re back to street-corner protests and “Honk If You <3 Peace” rallies and wondering why it suddenly got so lonely.
To be fair, though, the driving force of the earlier anti-war rallies was the war in Iraq, not Afghanistan. While the Af-Pak fight has lost considerable public support, the first war had broader support, as it targeted the actual 9/11 villains and their cohorts. The protests against the wars got fueled mainly by our presence in Iraq, and peaked when Bush put the surge strategy into place. The success of that strategy and the Status of Forces Agreement that moved American troops out of the cities and into support roles has removed most of the objections to Iraq, and for good reason — why protest a war that’s all but over? Obama promised to have troops out in 16 months during the presidential campaign, but as Reason TV notes, he stuck with the Bush SOFA policy — and after 24 months, we’re still there and likely will be for years to come.
A very valid assessment. However, there is more to that too. The left just straight up hated Bush with a passion. The Anti-War protests were also less about Anti-War, and more about Anti-Bush. The left never, ever forgave Bush for winning the 2000 election. To this very day, the left still believes that Bush and Co. somehow or another stole the election. The left screamed and yelled and protested; that is, until it was very clear that challenging Bush’s election in 2000 was a lost cause.
Then 9/11 came along, and the entire Country stood behind Bush. The left basically stood down, and supported the President. Of course, there were outliers, but the majority of them were supportive. So, America went to war in Afghanistan, then Bush in 2003 decided that invading Iraq was necessary; which we now know was based upon faulty intelligence. Of course, there are some, within Neo-Conservative circles, that still, to this day, believe that Iraq had WMD’s. However, in this day and age of post-Bush, those people are big minority. Anyhow, At first, the MSM went along with Bush’s plans and the persons saying that Bush was wrong were a small minority. Over time, as it became clear that Bush’s intelligence was flat out wrong; the voices of dissent became louder.
By 2004, these voices had risen to fever pitch and the left was in fully in “Get Bush out of Office!”, an effort that ultimately failed; because of the total lack of electability of John Kerry as President of the United States. By 2006, however, independents and even some more main stream Conservatives had left Bush and realized that the man was just simply wrong. Of course, the loyalists defended him to the end and still do. But now, they are quite the minority. Thus was the reason why the Democrats won so big in 2006 and 2008; not because Obama or the Democrats were something wonderful — it was because American independents wanted something different than Bush’s Neo-Conservative, interventionist foriegn policy blunders.
However, there is one thing that this video totally missed; the voices of the Anti-War movement were not all Liberal or even Libertarian. There were some Conservatives, there were Paleo-Conservative voices. Pat Buchanan and some others formed a Magazine called “The American Conservative.” Which was formed for the sole purpose of convincing the White House that they were wrong about Iraq and foriegn policy. An effort, which ultimately failed. These same people, earned the scorn of people like David Frum. Which is pretty ironic, considering his position today on Bush and the Iraq war.
Of course, looking back; seeing all of the blunders of the Democrats and of the President — Bush does not seem that bad of a President. Bush was by no means perfect. However, the tone-deaf antics of the Democrats after the election of President Barack Obama, made Bush’s era seem a bit more sane. Prime example: Has the economy gotten better since President Obama was elected? No, it has not. In fact, it has gotten a bit worse. I have heard the following from committed Democrats: “President Obama got it exactly backward; he did healthcare first. That was stupid, he should have gotten the economy fixed FIRST and waited to see, if the fixes worked — THEN he should have tackled healthcare reform!” Which is right, Obama and the Democrats wanted to push it through, despite the consequences and for that they paid for it in the 2010 elections — and outside of a major change in the economy or something major in the terrorism world, like the capture of Osama Bin Laden and the totally destruction of Al-Qaeda; which will never happen, Obama and the Democrats will further more pay for this foolishness. Possibly by Obama being primaries out in 2012. Do not discount that theory, we do live in much different times and the America people have become more fickle in their loyalty. It could happen.
As a Bonus, I present a movie, the name of it is simply “Crawford” that basically proves what I said above. It is a little long. But it is well worth it:
Elliott Wave International’s Jeffrey Kennedy explains many ways to use this basic tool
January 19, 2011
By Elliott Wave International
The following trading lesson has been adapted from Jeffrey Kennedy’s eBook, Trading the Line – 5 Ways You Can Use Trendlines to Improve Your Trading Decisions. Now through February 7, you can download the 14-page eBook free. Learn more here.
“How to draw a trendline” is one of the first things people learn when they study technical analysis. Typically, they quickly move on to more advanced topics and too often discard this simplest of all technical tools.
Yet you’d be amazed at the value a simple line can offer when you analyze a market. As Jeffrey Kennedy, Elliott Wave International’s Chief Commodity Analyst, puts it:
“A trendline represents the psychology of the market, specifically, the psychology between the bulls and the bears. If the trendline slopes upward, the bulls are in control. If the trendline slopes downward, the bears are in control. Moreover, the actual angle or slope of a trendline can determine whether or not the market is extremely optimistic or extremely pessimistic.”
In other words, a trendline can help you identify the market’s trend. Consider this example in the price chart of Google.
That one trendline — drawn between the lows in 2004 and the lows in 2005 — provided support for a number of retracements over the next two years.
That’s pretty basic. But there are many more ways to draw trendlines. When a market is in a correction, you can draw a trendline and then draw a parallel line: in turn, these two parallel lines can create a channel that often “contains” the corrective price action. When price breaks out of this channel, there’s a good chance the correction is over and the main trend has resumed. Here’s an example in a chart of Soybeans. Notice how the upper trendline provided support for the subsequent move.
For more free trading lessons on trendlines, download Jeffrey Kennedy’s free 14-page eBook, Trading the Line – 5 Ways You Can Use Trendlines to Improve Your Trading Decisions. It explains the power of simple trendlines, how to draw them, and how to determine when the trend has actually changed. Download your free eBook.
